


The Passion With Which It Is Practiced

by gabolange



Series: The Best of What Might Be [2]
Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Car Sex, F/M, Smut, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 18:50:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10224776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: She hadn’t meant for it to happen the first time.  She can't say the same for the second.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AU from Season 2, a sequel to "The Best of What Might Be."
> 
> Thanks to pellucid for the encouragement and beta. All errors are my own.

***

Sister Bernadette hadn’t meant for it to happen the first time. She’s not entirely sure she can say the same for the second.

It is, she knows, a circumstance she might have found a way out of, or at least not taken advantage of. Yes, it is late and the delivery had been taxing for everyone. Yes, her bike is dropping its chain on every third rotation of the pedals. And yes, the storm rolling in looks quite threatening.

But no, she really does not need to let Doctor Turner drive her home. 

When he opens the door to the passenger seat to let her into the car, he steps close enough that she could feel the heat of his body next to hers. Her breath catches in her throat and rather than demure, she lets herself meet his eyes. She feels the heat rising in her face, the way her breath shortens, but still she doesn’t look away, caught in the depth of desire she sees there. 

“You were quite something today,” he says, a nearly professional compliment except for his tone, which she has only heard once before--and that had been in her bed, just before he put his mouth between her legs. 

She has tried not to think often of their encounter the previous month, has made an effort not to be alone with him. The second endeavor has been successful enough; it has been easy to stay with mothers in the clinic and encourage the younger nurses to manage the autoclave and the folding in the name of education. And she has been lucky, until tonight, that no delivery she attended alone has required his assistance.

But her thoughts have not been as easily managed. Seeing him in the clinic, buttoned up under suit layers and his clinical coat, she has only been able to picture the muscle of his back and shoulders beneath her hands, the way his forearms tensed under her fingers. Her bed, once a respite from the outside world, now brings memories of curling her hands into the sheets as he pressed into her. 

And so, there next to the car, whatever resolve she has mustered the last few weeks fails entirely. “Was I?” she replies, shifting her weight so she brushes up against him. “A mutual effort perhaps.” She is trying to flirt, but the way his eyes darken, she suspects she has instead managed an outright proposition.

“Quite,” he says, quickly stepping back and letting her fold herself into the car.

**

Soon they are on the outskirts of town, parked on a turnoff she thinks even the survey corps mustn’t know about. She wonders why he knows this is here, what other activities might encourage the use of hidden stop-offs under forgotten trees.

She doesn’t get a chance to ask. As soon as the car has been turned off, he turns to face her. He reaches out and takes her face in his hands, pushing her wimple off as he does so. 

He leans forward and kisses her then. He tastes of too many cigarettes and the tang of fatigue, but she opens her mouth to him, willing him to kiss her as deeply as he can. How quickly she has learned that she likes the touch of his tongue on hers, the way his fingers card through her hair--or would, if she wasn’t wearing her cap. She shifts back and pulls it off, letting her hair out of its clasp as she does.

Doctor Turner threads his fingers through the blonde strands and pulls her toward him again. She meets him with her mouth, kissing him hard. She knows what it feels like now, this want, the way it builds and builds as they move ever closer. And yet, this experience is already different for that knowledge, and that makes her the anticipation even greater.

Over the course of the short drive, he had kept his eyes fixed ahead, his hands in their proper places on the steering wheel. The air between them had grown heavy with need delayed, not just by their tour out of Poplar, but by the intervening weeks since they have done this.

And so she buries her hands in his hair as he shifts to kiss her neck, darting his tongue out against her pulse point. She hears herself moan and feels him smile against her skin. “You like that, do you?” he says and does it again. She feels hot wetness pool between her legs and she moans. 

“Yes,” she says, finding herself breathless. 

Now, he shifts a hand to rest at her waist, encouraging her closer still. But the gearstick and the steering wheel rapidly impede her progress and she pulls back in frustration. She looks at him, a little mussed but not nearly as mussed as she would like him to be, and at their surroundings, and frowns. She has no idea what to do. 

“Back seat?” he asks, and she has to laugh at the eager look on his face. She kisses him briefly to accept the suggestion.

He opens his door and climbs out of the car, shrugging out of his suit coat as he does. She contemplates for a moment the problem of her habit, but he has clearly considered this as well, because soon he is beside the passenger seat, pulling her to a standing position. He unbuttons her swiftly, more concerned with speed than style, discarding the heavy garments haphazardly in the car. When she has been reduced to her slip, he opens the door to the back seat and sits down, sliding in on the bench seat and holding out his hand. 

She clamors in after him, expecting to be pushed down against the seat, but instead he pulls her into his lap to straddle him. There isn’t much room at all, and she sits flush against him, her breasts pressed into his chest, her knees squeezed against the car seat’s vinyl, his erection growing between her legs.

“Hello,” she says, reaching out to trace the curve of his ear with her index finger. His cock twitches slightly beneath the fabric of his trousers when she does that and she rocks against him, drawing her slip up above her knees. His eyes are drawn to the skin between the hem of her slip and the tops of her stockings and she follows his gaze.

It is strange to think of herself as an object of desire, that after years of hiding, she might be the one encouraging this man, any man, to groan as he touches her. But he does, dancing his fingers across her skin and causing her to shiver. He strokes again, making no move to touch her intimately but teasing the skin of her inner thighs with his thumbs as he holds her to his lap.

Her knickers are already wet, damp with the evidence of the want he is pulling from her with the barest of touches. But despite their position, he does not seem to be in a hurry and she likes that out here, away from everything, they can take their time. 

Doctor Turner leans forward and kisses the top of her breast where her slip meets her skin. He follows the edge until his mouth rests between her breasts, and he darts his tongue out to taste her skin. And again. His left hand still strokes her thigh, but he brings his right up to push the strap of her slip and brassiere down her arm, pushing at the fabric. She reaches to help him and he smiles, eyes a little foggy with lust.

“You are so beautiful,” he says as he stares openly at her bare breasts.

In this moment, it is easy to believe him. The habit is meant to obscure the form, enforce the vow of chastity by making it easy for the world to forget that those who wear it are women. But here, with him, with his mouth closing on her breast and his hands tight against her, as she moans and rocks against him, she feels more feminine, more beautiful, than she has in years.

She curls one of her hands into his hair behind his ear, stroking his head in encouragement. He rolls her nipple with his tongue, damp and warm and good, and she feels the barest scratch of his teeth on flesh there, the sharpness of the bite moderated immediately by his breath. 

Sister Bernadette alternates between watching him, seeing the obvious pleasure he takes in her body, and gasping for breath at the sensations he is drawing with fingers and teeth. She barely knows how to respond, what she can do now other than let the pleasure wash over her, but she wonders--.

He releases her breast to take a breath and she gazes down at him, drawing his face up to hers. He stares back and she pushes his fringe off his forehead before tilting his chin to kiss him. She brushes her fingers over his face, tracing the lines there. Maybe one day she will ask about the stories they obscure, but today, she shifts and kisses the side of his mouth before letting her hands wander to his collar.

Her fingers shake as she unknots his tie, and he moves to help her but she shakes her head. “I want to,” she says, though hardly knows how to complete the sentence. To undress him as ably as he has her, to watch his skin revealed to her beneath her fingers. To learn how to give him at least some of the pleasure he has bestowed on her.

He nods and she can feel his gaze on her as she pulls his tie free and discards it somewhere in the car. She unbuttons the top button of his shirt, leaning down to kiss the base of his neck, tasting salt and sweat on her tongue. The rest of the buttons follow until she runs into his waistcoat, but that is easy enough.

“So many layers,” she whispers.

He doesn’t smile but the corners of his eyes wrinkle as he takes that in. “You’re one to talk,” he says, which she has to concede. She responds by pushing all of it--waistcoat, braces, shirt--down his arms. He shakes himself loose from the fabric and returns his hands to her thighs, stroking the skin there.

She likes that, the way the sensation spreads up and down her legs, the barest touch generating a ripple effect like a pebble tossed into a pond. It makes her shiver and she squirms, and it would be easy to give into his touch, so easy, but she still hasn’t finished what she wants to.

“Mmm,” she says, and leans forward to kiss his chest, moving her hands to pull his vest from his trousers. She pushes it up, letting her fingers stroke over his stomach and ribs as she does, this time giving herself time to learn the feel of his skin under her hand. He releases her for a moment and pulls his vest over his head.

Their current position isn’t going to work, she thinks, for what she wants to do next; there is no more room for her to shift back to kiss down his body the way he has hers, and she frowns. 

“What?” he says, and she wonders if he thinks the look on her face concerns what she sees. She has no idea how to express this, the wanting to touch and taste and give, even as she is learning to accept the same from him. But she hates the way he is looking at her right now, so she shifts forward again, bringing her body in contact with his, her mouth on his, her breasts against his chest, her thighs wrapped as closely as she can on his.

His arms go around her, his fingers press into her back. His erection is hard between her legs despite the fabric still between them, and she grinds down onto him. 

“Oh,” he says into her mouth, so she does it again. His hips jerk into hers and soon she is rocking in earnest in time with his thrusts, the feel of his trousers and his cock rough against her center. She hears herself gasp, a little noise that she can’t stop, as he pushes up toward her, mimicking the actions she hopes will follow. But this is good, so good, and the heat rushes between her legs and she holds on, desperate for more. 

“Oh my,” she says. 

He shifts his hands down her back to her thighs, pushing her slip up her hips, revealing her knickers and garter belt as she humps him. It is good, but it isn’t enough, she knows that now, and so with a final hard thrust against him, she leans back, gasping and fumbling for his belt.

His trousers are a mess from where her wetness has stained their front, but she doesn’t think he cares as she unbuckles him. He groans as she strokes the front of trousers as she unzips them, touching his erection through his pants.

“Jesus,” he says. And this is what she wanted, the look of abject need she sees on his face as she reaches between them to stroke him intentionally for the first time. His eyes are fixed to her face and sweat appears at his temple, as if the mere act of her touching him drives him mad. She hopes it does; her nights have been filled with only his face, the feel of his body on hers, and she wants to return the favor, if it can be called that.

“God, enough,” he says. He takes her hips and holds her away from him, shoving his pants and trousers down to his knees. His erection springs free and bobs against his stomach and she reaches out to stroke it, at once hard and soft between her fingers. He sounds strangled as he says, “If you keep doing that--.”

She wants, sometime, to see what will happen if she keeps doing that, but not now, because now she wants his hardness deep inside her, driving away the ache that has been building since they got into the car. So she releases him, taking a deep breath as she does so.

Her knees are getting tired for this position, an odd feeling tangling with the desire and pleasure that courses through her body. She wants to stretch her legs and she wants to fuck him, and surely both must be possible. She giggles a little as she says, “Can we move, though? My knees--.” 

Again, she expects to find herself pushed down on the bench, but instead he shifts to his back on the seat, shifting her so she is astride him, one leg beside his chest, the other resting over the side of the seat. His legs are too long and his feet dangle off the edge at an awkward angle, but she hardly cares as she sits back on his thighs, his belt pressing into her back, his cock hard between them, his eyes dark on hers, and, finally, room to shake the pins and needles out of her legs.

He holds himself up on his elbows, stroking his hands up her stocking-covered legs. “I can take this off,” she says, gesturing to the remains of her clothes. 

“No,” he says. “Don’t.”

And so she doesn’t, pressing down on his chest to lever herself over him. She hasn’t even removed her knickers, so she reaches between them to hold them aside as she sinks down onto him, his hands tight on her hips. It is odd and wonderful to touch him and herself intimately at once, and she feels his cock slide into her against her vulva and her fingers.

“Oh,” she says when they are joined and she is perched on him, watching him between her knees.

He draws his legs up onto the bench, resting against her back. She leans back against them, changing the angle of him inside her, and starts to move.

It is a subtle thing, a different thing, to have him like this. Her breasts bounce as she rocks, and he watches closely. The feeling inside her is different, too, not better, but each of his thrusts strike her in a different place--oh, maybe it is better, there, that spot, and she moans.

Last time, he had been concerned he would hurt her, concerned she might change her mind, concerned for her reaction at the end. She can tell these thoughts have vanished, because he thrusts against her roughly, holding her hips. “Oh,” she says, meeting him thrust for thrust, hard and deep and dear Lord, that is good. 

And now she is lost in a tangle of sensation and feeling, wanting more, wanting him, feeling her body shake as she climbs toward a climax she can now anticipate and wants, desperately, though she doesn’t want this to be over, wants to stay here forever in this warm, messy cocoon of theirs. “More,” she says and he manages it somehow despite the angle, slamming his cock more deeply into her. 

“God,” he says and sits up slightly, just enough to reach a hand between them, fumbling for her clitoris. She presses herself against him, and this is delicious, this is perfect, the touch of his hand against her and the weight of him inside her and she cries out and shakes as the orgasm washes over her in waves. 

But he isn’t done, and as she comes he keeps thrusting. She is boneless, weightless, but even though her pleasure has been sated, she relishes the feeling of his final move against her and the gasp he releases when he finishes.

He drops his legs down to the bench of the seat and she shifts so she can stretch out on top of him. His arms fold around her and she listens to his heartbeat as it calms. It would be the easiest thing in the world, to fall asleep against him with his hands stroking through her hair and down her back.

He kisses her temple, gentle and affectionate, and smiles against her hair. “Fast learner,” he says.

**

She arrives home late, praying that no one will see her as she slips into the convent. She stinks of sweat and sex and is sure that anyone she runs into will surely see through her in an instant.

But the habit does its job and Nurse Franklin peers sleepily at her from the couch where she is listening for the phone. “You’re late,” she says, observing but not accusing.

“There was a problem with the car,” Sister Bernadette says and slips away. 

***


End file.
